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In This Week’s Box
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- Super “Z” peaches, Frog Hollow Farm
- Granola, Frog Hollow Farm
- Blueberries, Valley Center, CA
- Hass avocado, Valley Center, CA
- Valencia oranges, Valley Center, CA
- Kiwi, Auburn, CA
- Strawberries, Lodi, CA
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From Farmer Al
Dear CSA members,
It’s all about the weather…. Have you heard that one before? So here it is, mid-May, which should be dry and warm in the upper 70s to mid 80s. It’s still wet, windy and cold! Three conditions we fruit farmers–and you fruit lovers–hate!
Can we tolerate it? Yes. We can and we do and we adjust. For next week’s cherries, the ripening process is definitely impacted (slowed down). This means picking will have to be much more carefully done, working slowly through the trees to find the few really ripe fruits you’ve all come to count on in your boxes.
It looks like there may also be a (very) few apricots for next week. The new Apache variety, which is now in its “fourth leaf”. Planted in February 2008, this will be its first crop and it was luckily spared the devastating damage suffered by our Goldensweets. But again, our challenge in this unpredictable weather will be just when and how to pick.
This week’s fruit
Hi members!
We’re in that transitional stage as we prepare for all the stone fruit, so this box has some ups and downs. We opted to skip on getting extra of the same fruits from our partner farms as many of them were nearing the very end of their season and we’d been seeing the quality drop. With most fruit varieties we pick ourselves, we have more each week than our CSA box needs are, but with these peaches we had just barely enough to go around. These are definitely an early variety and more of a “water” peach than a “sugar” peach as our owner Sarah says. They’re a great hint of the summer peaches to come, and quite juicy. If they need to ripen further, leave them on the countertop away from direct sunlight and don’t stack or cluster them for more even ripening.
The strawberries in this week’s box unfortunately won’t be in as good shape as last week’s pick. They suffered greatly because of the weekend rain so are more of a juice or farmer’s market quality fruit. They are very ripe and will deteriorate extremely quickly. Instead of cutting away any heavily bruised areas, consider cooking with them or mashing them up to enjoy in/over ice cream, blended into a smoothie, etc.
I hope everyone liked the soap sample last week! I know we definitely had some positive response, and we’re working out the final details to figure out the best way to facilitate this add-on. (Hopefully we’ll have it all online by the end of today!) Speaking of add-ons, you’ll notice a bag of granola in this week’s box. Since we had a smaller crop of peaches than we expected, the kitchen bagged up all they could this week for you all to enjoy. As always, happy eating!
Cheers,
Kimi
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Kimi Owens is Frog Hollow's Customer Care and Marketing Coordinator. She is a strong believer in local and global sustainability and is committed to improving the transparency and communication channels of Happy Child CSA. Questions or suggestions in regards to this website may be directed to her at kimi@froghollow.com or via phone at extension 201.
